Que Golazo de Grants Program

Hispanic Marketing Council Strategic Excellence Awards Gold Medal

Ford came to us asking how to complement their grassroots activations at Alianza de Futbol with storytelling that complemented that in-person touchpoint with the reach that digital content can provide. We pinpointed their existing soccer activation –– the Que Golazo series –– with a soccer-specific theme with the Que Golazo de Grants program.

Our insight was about access to opportunity, or the lack of it for many Hispanic communities in the soccer space. Many college scholarships in the sport go to those who can pay for them, with travel tournaments, private coaching, and connections that wealthier communities have.

So in each Alianza de Fútbol market, eight locations per season, we surprised and delighted one athlete with a $5,000 scholarship to help them with the college admissions process. But a check wasn’t enough. We also gave them free admission to Access U, a program that provides scouting opportunities to pros and college scouts for promising players who don’t have the means to be seen. Through two seasons, we already have multiple college athletes, including one playing at Harvard University.

Sustaining Content

We created quick-turn video assets of each surprise and delight moment on the fields awarding the grants, with a recap at the end of each season showing the magnitude of the collective impact of the work.

Each video was posted organically but also flighted via paid media to local Alianza markets to drive awareness of the program and cultivate submissions for the grants in local markets.

We partnered with three notable Hispanic soccer players –– Ricardo Pepi, Brandon Vazquez, and Maria Sanchez to help drive reach for the content.

Breakthrough Storytelling

Numbers can only tell part of the story, so it was important for us to put a face to the awards. In season two, we did in-depth storytelling with one of our grant winners, Cruz Martinez to humanize our story.

This will kick off a continued storytelling series through subsequent seasons, showing that for every quick video, there is a family, a story, and a life altered by the program.

The longform piece lived on Youtube and digital, driving traffic to our longform with bite-sized socially-optimized pieces through organic and paid social to get multiple bites at the apple with one story.

Results

• 21 video assets

• $100,000 in grants and 20 scholarships to Access U

• 5 million impressions

• Hispanic Marketing Council Strategic Excellence Awards Gold Medal